Unincorporated Chatham crime down 5.3 percent so far in 2018

Will Peebles @willpeeblesSMN

Saturday

Jul 7, 2018 at 8:00 PMJul 7, 2018 at 9:43 PM

Chatham police are back.

And after repeated disagreements between the Savannah City Council and Chatham County Commission, the 15-year-old public safety partnership came to an end earlier this year, splitting the consolidated Savannah-Chatham police into separate city and county entities.

Feb. 1 marked the first day of operation for Savannah and Chatham County police departments since the merger agreement was originally approved in 2003.

Chatham police’s pre-merger brown uniforms have been swapped for powder blue, but the department’s job is still the same: police the unincorporated areas of Chatham County.

Former Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley announced Nov. 6, 2017, that he was accepting the position of chief of the Chatham County Police Department.

Back in November, Hadley said he was excited to get the chance to build a police department from scratch.

“Very few times do you get the opportunity, in a department of this size, to shape the culture from day one,” Hadley said. “Culture really drives how folks view their work and their role in the community and how they go about it on a day-to-day basis.”

Closing the gap

The department is young, and its youth shows most in its staffing. Hadley and 25 other officers were sworn into the department in December. The week before the demerger took effect, Chatham police were still missing about 80 of the 127 officer positions allocated by the county.

Since the demerger took effect, Chatham County Sheriff’s Office deputies have been filling in the gaps and lending a hand on patrols.

They’d closed the gap a bit by May, with 75 sworn officers. As of July 3, a group of five police academy graduates — the department’s first — were sworn in, with 19 more entering the academy on Thursday.

That academy will finish up in September, and another will begin later that month. Hadley hopes September’s class will be of similar size.

“If we could duplicate that, or even bring it up to 25, we could be above 90 percent staffing by the first of the year,” Hadley said. “We’re very pleased about that.”

Hadley said he has a good relationship with Savannah police. Both departments remain focused on safety, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries.

"The demerger, in terms of the particulars, the separation and the division of assets and all that, (Interim Savannah Police) Chief (Mark) Revenew and his staff have been a pleasure to work with," Hadley said. "Whatever small differences we’ve encountered, we’ve settled them right away through conversations and relationships."

He’s keeping his nose to the grindstone, despite the uphill battle of building a police department almost entirely from scratch.

“I think we’ve got a great team; there’s a lot of positive energy at the department,” Hadley said. “Plus we have a great support system with the county commissioners and the chair and the county manager’s office. Everybody has been chipping in to make us successful.”

Crime numbers

Typically, there is less crime in Unincorporated Chatham than in Savannah proper. Last year, the area was patrolled by the still-consolidated Savannah-Chatham police.

As of July 3, crime in the unincorporated areas is down by 5.3 percent from 2017’s totals. Chatham police have investigated 840 crimes overall this year, 47 fewer than the 887 crimes Savannah-Chatham police investigated in 2017.

Violent crimes, which include homicide, rape, robbery and assault, are slightly up for the county department this year.

The majority of crimes investigated by Chatham police are property crimes, which are down overall by 6.2 percent from last year’s total.

For the last two years, the most-committed crime in Unincorporated Chatham has been theft from auto. Last year, there were 198 car break-ins investigated. This year there have been 246, the largest increase in a single crime across the board for Chatham police.

“The entering autos is a completely preventable crime — 96 or so of those incidents is from unlocked vehicles,” Hadley said. “So if I could again implore upon our citizens: Please lock your vehicles. Remember that it can happen. We wish it wouldn’t, but it can happen to anyone. Please lock your vehicles.”

Chatham police share this plight with their city counterpart. Between the Chatham and Savannah police, nearly 200 firearms have been taken out of unlocked vehicles already this year.

“That’s 200 firearms that don’t need to be out there in our community,” Hadley said.

The biggest drop in crime in Chatham police’s jurisdiction came in residential burglaries. There were 167 at this point in 2017; this year, that number is down to 99.

'They're the future'

The first class of police academy graduates for Chatham police finished up their academy training on June 15. They’re now certified, sworn officers.

The group began their post-police academy training with a few service projects around the county last month. On June 19, they were at Chatham County Animal Shelter lending a hand wherever they could, whether it was walking the dogs, feeding the cats or cleaning out the kennels.

The first five, Erica McDade, Joey Robertson, Jovante Spivey, Esquina White and Heath Wynn, have become a close-knit team while working through the academy and subsequent training together.

“We’re brothers and sisters,” McDade said. “We’ve been with each other now for 14 or 15 weeks, so we’ve officially learned every personality. We’ve built the bond.”

McDade said their friendship extends outside of police work as well.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re at work or not, we’re still texting each other,” McDade said. “We’ve got a group text where we just go back and forth like, ‘Did you hear this?’ or ‘Did you see this?’”

All about community

On June 24, the five were helping out with the weekly homeless food drive in Forsyth Park, hosted by People Helping People of Savannah.

The team arrived at 8 a.m. to help set up for the event that began at 1 p.m. Wynn said getting out and engaging with the public was a good way to practice public interactions as police officers.

“It’s a good way to start, getting out in the community,” Wynn said. “I’m just out of the police academy, so I’m happy to be out in the community, getting a feel for what I’m going to be doing. We’re community oriented, and it feels good to be out here to contribute as best I can.”

For Wynn, joining Chatham police was the fruition of his dream to become a police officer.

June 25 was the first time he went out on patrol. He worked in corrections with Chatham County Sheriff’s Office for over a year, so he’s used to the work involved.

“I’m used to talking to people and getting to the bottom of things and engaging with the community,” Wynn said. “You have to know more, and apply more knowledge, but the premise of it is still just talking to people.”

Stacking positives

McDade said she sees Hadley’s community-facing approach to training is a testament to his experience.

“You want to make sure you install all the good that you can,” McDade said. “You don’t want any negative in there, so I think what he’s doing is stacking positive on top of positive, and he has a lot of past experience. We have a really great chief.”

Hadley said the group of young cadets were great officers and great people.

“Youth breeds some energy. For me, at this stage in my career, I’ve got almost 28 years in the business and being around that youthfulness, you can see yourself in them. I was there once,” Hadley said. “Let’s not repeat the failures of the past; let’s replicate successes for the future.”

The 19 officers in the police academy now are the future of the department, Hadley said, and he’s excited about the opportunity to foster positive growth.

“In 10, 15 years, who knows who'll be here and and who won’t be?” Hadley said. “But if we do it right, and a we get them started on their career the right way, socialize them into the profession the right way, we’re going to see the fruits of that labor right here in unincorporated area and in the metropolitan area.”

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